Father Walter J. Ciszek Day set for Oct. 15
Sep. 3—SHENANDOAH — The annual commemoration of Father Walter J. Ciszek Day is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15, with an open house at the Father Walter J. Ciszek Prayer League Center, 218 W. Cherry St., followed by a 2 p.m. Mass in St. Casimir Church, 229 N. Jardin St., a sacred worship site of Divine Mercy Roman Catholic Parish.
Ciszek is a candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church, and St. Casimir Church is his native house of worship, where he was baptized, schooled and received other sacraments.
The baptismal font at the back of the church is the same one that was used for Ciszek's baptism.
Following the Mass, there will be refreshments in the church hall, according to the prayer league website at www.ciszek.org.
The homilist for this year's observance will be the Rev. Phil Hurley, S.J., university chaplain at Loyola University, Maryland.
Born Nov. 4, 1904, in Shenandoah, Ciszek entered the Jesuit novitiate in Poughkeepsie, New York, and was ordained in 1937 as the first American Jesuit in the Byzantine Catholic Rite.
In 1939 he entered, as a missionary priest, Russia, which had become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — also called the USSR or Soviet Union — following the Bolshevik Revolution about two decades earlier.
In 1941, Ciszek was arrested for alleged espionage for the Vatican.
He was imprisoned and then detained in the Soviet Union for more than 20 years, during which he prayed, celebrated Divine Liturgy, heard confessions and otherwise ministered to the faithful despite risk to his own safety.
Ciszek was finally released in 1963 in exchange for two Russian spies. He returned home to a widely heralded Mass of Thanksgiving in St. Casimir Church and then worked at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University in New York.
He died on Dec. 8, 1984, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and is buried at the Jesuit Novitiate, Wernersville.
The prayer league is the official organization for the promotion of the cause of canonization of Ciszek, originally established and approved by the Most Rev. Michael Dudick, bishop of the Byzantine Eparchy of Passaic (now deceased).
The league works "through prayers and the living out of Father Walter's spiritual message of the acceptance of the Will of God in vibrant faith," according to its website.
The process of the cause was officially transferred to the control of the Diocese of Allentown and is under the auspices of the Most Rev. Alfred A. Schlert, Bishop of Allentown, who appointed the Rev. Eugene Ritz as co-postulator.
Ciszek's cause for canonization is now at the Vatican.
The Rev. Monsignor Ronald C. Bocian, Divine Mercy pastor, will be the Father Walter J. Ciszek Day Mass celebrant.
The prayer league's mailing address is at what is now a Bernardine Franciscan Sisters' convent at 18 E. Oak St., Shenandoah, PA 17976-2356. It also can be reached by calling 570-462-2270 or emailing fwccenter@ciszek.org.
